China and America - mirror images?
Great minds, they say, think alike. And, it would seem, great powers tend to behave in similar ways, although not always to each other's liking. The United States is, without doubt, the most powerful country in the world. And China, also without doubt, is rising, and may soon become the second-most powerful. Already, there is talk of the Chinese economy overtaking that of the US by the middle of this century but, of course, even if that were to happen, in per capita terms, China would still lag way behind.
But already, there are discernible patterns of behaviour that are similar. Take the way Washington handles North Korea and the way Beijing deals with Taiwan. After the eruption of the latest crisis on the Korean Peninsula in October 2002, for a very long time, the US refused to have anything to do with Pyongyang. Kim Jong-il, it declared, must first accept 'complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement' of all his nuclear weapons programmes. After that, Washington said, it would be willing to talk. Similarly, Beijing refuses to have any official dealings with Taipei. What President Chen Shui-bian must first do, it says, is accept the 'one-China' policy - and acknowledge that Taiwan is part of China - after which, anything can be discussed.
In other words, both Washington and Beijing were calling on their adversaries to surrender first, talk later. Not surprisingly, neither North Korea nor Taiwan was willing to oblige. It is also interesting to note that the US wants Beijing to be more flexible in its Taiwan stance, while China has called on Washington to be more flexible vis-a-vis North Korea. The US wants China to use its leverage over North Korea, while Beijing wants the US to rein in Taiwan. This is not to say that there is any link between the two issues. In fact, it is unlikely that either Beijing or the US would be willing to give up its special relationship with North Korea and Taiwan, respectively.
Washington has never made an unambiguous declaration that it will never use force against North Korea. The issue, the US says, is not what Pyongyang calls America's 'hostile policy', but rather North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons. Similarly, Beijing says that the issue in the cross-strait situation is not the hundreds of missiles it has pointed at Taiwan, but rather the island's pursuit of independence. Ironically, perhaps, Taiwan (while continuing to push the envelope) claims that it does not need to pursue independence, since it is already an independent state whose formal name is the Republic of China. While North Korea does not deny that it has an active nuclear weapons programme, it does imply that it is already a nuclear power. It has withdrawn from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and has boasted that it has reprocessed all 8,000 spent fuel rods in the Yongbyon nuclear facility.
Clearly, great powers, such as the US and China, are never going to unilaterally give up the right to use force, especially where they see vital national interests at stake. Similarly, smaller powers are going to extract the last possible ounce of concessions from the major powers in any sort of negotiation.
It is in the nature of major powers to dictate, and in the nature of smaller players to resist. In the case of North Korea, at least, while the US refuses to engage in bilateral negotiations, it has agreed to six-party talks. But in the Taiwan case, Beijing insists that it is a domestic issue, and that no outside power should intervene. That means an international forum, which might help to defuse the issue, is unacceptable in principle.
Frank Ching is a Hong Kong-based journalist and commentator
